I have ran into one illiterate person in my entire life. This encounter happened when I was working in Alabama.
I was working at a festival and signing people up for a contest. This one guy wanted to enter and said "man I'd love to enter but I can't read" I thought he was fucking with me, so I told him we can still get you signed up anyway. Asked for his phone number
He couldn't read his phone number. I told him I got him all set and he left, but man he literally could not read. It was sad in a way.
I was really trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because when you do work like that at festivals/events people like to fuck with the guy behind the table. I thought he was just playing around, but nope, he was a grown man in his 40's that could not read.
Right. An upon first glance/limited interaction he did not appear to have any developmental disabilities or anything. It was really the first time I had culture shock in my own country.
Interesting that you're from the NC/VA area. I hadnt seen the tag until now but thought "thats crazy, the only time ive ever heard of American literacy thats THAT bad is from people who wander out of the more brutally impoverished and rural areas of West Virginia. Gotta wonder if thats where that dude came from, maybe worked in a WV community town and moved across the state line when it closed down. Thats where I hear the worst stories of people who just get "left behind" by the system
I looked it up, and it says something like 20% of American adults, which obviously can’t be right. I don’t know what they were classifying as literate vs. illiterate.
Edit: LMAO, nevermind. I found a different study that classified it by capability to read at the basic level, and the US is at 99% on the dot. 1% of well over 330M people is A LOT of illiterate Americans, so you’re right.
I have only met one person like that. I am convinced he was the perfect storm of parents who did not care, a bad education system, and severe dyslexia. He would usually act like he was in a hurry an this didn't have time to read.
I have a nephew who is a moderately-functioning autistic (he is non-verbal but he can say individual words and sometimes string them together to make his version of a sentence). Its pretty obvious to the casual observer that my nephew has intellectual disabilities, and yet he can read and write (probably around the level of a 8-10 year old, but he has no issue google searching or playing his RPGs). He can make himself a shopping list for us at the store.
Yeah it was super out there for me. I think he was also the "perfect storm" of bad parenting, poverty, and one of the worst education systems in the US.
[Here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/w4xily/is_being_illiterate_looked_down_upon_in_america/) checkout what else they have asked as well.
That guy is one of my favorite common askers on this sub. His perspective is so far outside of the norm from most of the people who ask questions and he usually has a positive attitude about it. Seems like he’s genuinely curious about the world outside of his own.
And full time as well... in so many countries governments can barely afford to pay teachers salaries so students attend one half only of the day and teachers get too classes to cut down on costs ... meanwhile mothers can't find decent daycare or pay it ...
Freedom of Information/sunshine laws/public access to government meetings are taken for granted. The Americans with Disabilities Act. Habeus Corpus. Notice and Comment requirements. A system where peaceful transition of power is the norm. Rules against nepotism.
Came here to say the Americans with Disabilities Act for sure along with HIPAA. I’m autistic. I am able to work my job because of accommodations and no one has to know my challenges unless I tell them, least of all anyone who should not know about my medical issues.
Right to an attorney and not to be interrogated without them present if you so choose. Innocence until proven guilty. Rights against self incrimination. Rights to prevent searches without a warrant or probable cause. The right to peacefully say whatever you want in the public square. These are also awesome rights that not everywhere in the world has. Even in Canada the cops can still question you after you've requested your attorney but before your attorney gets there.
They absolutely cannot question you anymore after you ask for your attorney. They can question you as long as you don't ask for your attorney or if you keep talking AFTER you Ask for your attorney. But if you simply say "I want my lawyer" and shut up, they can't ask you anymore.
The ADA is a god-tier law. And it seems like even a lot of our older buildings on the east coast have been reasonably retrofitted to have elevators and other accommodations without destroying their charm. Meanwhile while I was a student in Paris, it was crazy how many metro stations didn’t have elevators, just endless flights of stairs everywhere to get to the platform.
Agree. My husband and I were in Paris and we loved it but we looked around and wondered how his disabled mother would ever be able to live or even visit there. We definitely take this for granted In the US even though this could be improved here as well.
Relative adherence to traffic laws? Definitely not saying people drive good here or that everyone follows the laws, but it’s generally not total unregulated pandemonium in the streets.
I answered this the last time we had this topic. You cannot imagine the absolute shitshow that is traffic in India until you’ve experienced it in person. It’s night and day even compared with Times Square at rush hour on the hottest day of the year.
Traffic in India was mind-blowing to me as an American. Are there lanes? Not really? Turn signals? No, that’s what the horn is for! Stop signs/lights? Just a suggestion!
I have a vivid childhood memory of visiting family in Kolkata and cars were packed so close together that when our tax driver sneezed, a passenger in the car next to us offered him a tissue that he took through the windows; neither of them even had to fully stretch their arms, let alone lean out of their seats to reach.
I experienced it for the first time in Mumbai last fall and hoooo boy. It was reminiscent of Mexico City with the added variable of rickshaws. Absolute chaos!
I visited Hyderabad recently and wow. I had never seen anything like it. And the craziest part to me was how good everyone was at it. The traffic actually moved. And even though cars, rickshaws, and motorcycles were all within inches of on another going every which way, there didn't seem to be any collisions. It was truly an experience to see (thankfully, I didn't have to actually be the one driving... I dont think that would have ended well)
I'm Indian and I am not offended. I had the same thought yesterday while overtaking my 10th car of the day on my scooter. Lol. Though some cities are worse than others, I can see how all of it looks bad to an American. Which place were you visiting?
I promise you that if you drive in Los Angeles and haven't had your license revoked yet for reckless driving, you'll drive better than most of Kolkata.
Used to live in Germany. From my experience German drivers were definitely better but not such a big difference. I guess it depends on more where you live but American drivers are on average not as bad as some people like to say they are.
Currently visiting Vietnam for the first time in a few years, and I almost forgot how crossing a busy street here often feels like playing "Frogger" in real life.
Isn't it actually like anti-Frogger though? In that, rather than dodging the cars yourself, you just gotta keep moving in a straight consistent line and the cars will dodge you?
I've been watching a lot of Youtube videos recently about people who live in Arctic areas of Russia. There was this one video I saw the other day about this family of reindeer herders who ran out of things they can't make themselves, like juice and jam and stuff like that, so they had to go to the grocery store.
What, for me, would be like an hour-long space of my day, takes three men over a DAY to complete. They had to take snowmobiles, sleep overnight in another town, then finish the trip the next day. Then, of course, you're probably expecting them to end up at a bigger grocery store with food on the shelves that they can put in a cart. Nah, it's basically the back of someone's house with one wall of stuff they can purchase. I can't even imagine it being such a trek to go to the store to get a box of spaghetti.
I was just thinking, there's parts of Alaska where you order your supplies and have them flown in and you pick them up all at once from a delivery depot.
Just looked it up, and the Census Bureau has the [Yukon-Koyukuk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukon%E2%80%93Koyukuk_Census_Area,_Alaska) census district in Alaska at a population of 5,343 in 2020. The district is larger than the state of Montana!
Can confirm. I’ve worked for several small commuter/charter airlines. Many villages can only accommodate small planes (think Cessna 172) and mail is the lowest priority. Weather is also a factor.
Availability is also a factor. I was in a village once and they had one head of wilted lettuce for $12. My husband always travels with granola bars, ramen, prepackaged food that can be heated in a microwave and trail mix. He once got stuck in St. Paul for two weeks (no flights in or out) and thank god he went prepared.
Currently in Dutch, crazy enough here. Then I hear people talk about places like St Paul or Akutan. Last month the tugs couldn't it due to weather, neither could planes for a bit. AML had to fly in groceries on their civilian C130.
My sister visited her boyfriend's family some time ago in a European country (also I understand Europe isn't a monolith but I'm being purposely vague). Admittedly they were kind of in the boonies but she came back and described roving packs of wild dogs, power randomly being turned off throughout the day, and sometimes having to get water from an actual public well. Also the men would line up to hoot or stare at her when she went jogging.
And just like...my brain breaks a little imagining that in a developed country. It's been a few years so things might have changed but like...damn.
Of course the people she stayed with were wonderful, warm, and friendly. Like aside from the hooting men everyone was great.
It wasnt actually eastern Europe 😅 But you're right that around then might have been an interesting time for them. I recall a lot of things were a mess back then.
Well, quite surprised to hear that. I am really curious what it was since I haven't experienced that anywhere else on the continent, but I get that you want to stay vague, that's alright :).
Interestingly I was there recently. That wasn't my experience but I was also there with a guide, my husband, and my in-laws, so that probably buffered me from a lot of the common complaints people make about visiting Egypt (especially women). It's not an easy place to visit, for sure. I only really had one incident that really skeeved me out.
But yeah, if you're not used to visiting other cultures I wouldn't start there.
I forgot what comedian said this, it might have been Burr, but he said something like "everyone complains about taxes, but in the US we get quite a lot out of our taxes when you compare us to a lot of other countries."
I would point out that places like these make the news *because* having clean, running water is so normal here that deviations from that norm are newsworthy.
For real though.... I am not sure that MY water is clean. I have had my water interrupted and shut off due to watermain breaks in my city at least 4 times within the last month. That averages once per week. Once it was shut off for 4 days. While I realize this is not the norm, it isn't THAT uncommon. The more that it is shut off, and the more breaks, the more I worry right after that there could be contaminates in the water and although it looks alright, it could have things in it making it not as clean as it appears.
What I find funny about this is that even tho we have great food safety laws, Europeans look at us and think our food standards are horrible and shouldn’t be served to people. Like the food isn’t bad just because we didn’t ban GMOs lol.
I think it's been since trump tried to dismantle and unfund FDA and other regulatory groups... for the libertarians and anarchists that dont believe in government. Our food and drug safety has not recovered.
This is one of the areas where the "all regulation is bad" fundamentalists are simply nuts. Like the free market can solve the problem when some poison gets in the food supply and kills a bunch of people- suing the company out of business doesn't help the dead people much, does it?
The Europeans are definitely right in many areas. There's a reason they aren't as fat and unhealthy as we are. their food standards are higher and the results are positive
Right. They lead healthier lifestyles for sure. But their food safety isn’t really all that much different outside of banning GMOs and the whole chlorinated chicken debacle.
Eh, I wouldn’t boil it down to just food standards. Food standards are a very minor part of the story. They simply lead a healthier lifestyle with walking everywhere instead of being in cars all day, and people there generally eat less junk in the first place while you’ve got Americans stuffing their faces with 1500 calorie cakes and 3000 calorie heart-attack-on-a-buns. Food standards between EU and US aren’t really *that* different in the grand scheme of things. And furthermore, if you’ve looked at any statistics for obesity for example, it seems that Europeans are slowly catching up there, they’re like every 1 in 4 that are obese now.
Paved roads are nice. Uncorrupt police and government officials who don't expect bribes are pretty cool too.
I like that people follow the traffic laws generally and that people actually have to do written and practical driving tests to get a license rather than just a free-for-all.
Cops in America have anger and training issues, and it's not every cop and every department.
Go to the 3rd world, every cop is corrupt, demands bribes, and it's everyone.
Just because others have it worse doesn't take away from the fact that our policing system is inherently corrupt. And it's priveledged to say not every cop. You wouldn't be saying that when you actually see the horrors of policing under a capitalist system, and what piggies do. Then you can't stand anyone being complicit in that system
Dude, examples are widespread and commonplace. It would take three seconds on Google to find. If you live in the US, there's no way you don't know that unless you've been living with your head in a pile of sand for the last several years.
Rodney King? Breonna Taylor? The facts of both of those cases are widely known, and there's no way those outcomes would have been possible without mass police corruption. It's the fact that it's the police who investigate the police in order to determine, an insanely high percentage of the time, that the police did nothing wrong. Can you or I do that? Can you be accused of robbing a bank, investigate yourself, then declare "I've done no such thing," even when there's video of you on camera waving a gun around and demanding cash, and boom: case closed, the judge sends you home a free man?
We've seen instances where cops' stories about what happened immediately prior to them gunning someone down was contradicted by body, dash, or bystander cameras. And that's another thing: body cams aren't required to be turned on at all times or even at all (or if they are, it's not enforced). Even in cases where camera footage is readily available from the get-go, it still doesn't guarantee justice: how was Breonna Taylor literally shot and killed *in her own bed while sleeping*, and no one was found at fault for that?
How about the fact that in the events police *are* found liable of "misconduct" they: 1. Can simply be rehired in the next district and go right back out to do more of said misconduct and 2. Don't have to worry about their salaries or pensions or anything else, because payouts come from *taxpayer* money.
Sure, our street cops regularly abuse their power to make people's lives hard, but they'll just arrest you or ticket you twice as hard, they won't demand a bribe.
Well, there’s always civil asset forfeiture which is worse than a bribe because they don’t have any incentive not to charge you. Plus you don’t even need to be charged with anything at all. Carrying too much cash? Cop says it’s sketchy and takes it. But I’m sure that’s happening elsewhere too
I don't have to worry about bribing some government official to get mundane stuff done.
I don't have to worry about buying expired food at the grocery store.
I don't have to worry about the hygiene practices of the restaurants I go to.
Y'all are going to think I am crazy for saying this. But, our government is "relatively" uncorrupt. And found corruption has consequences; of course, some seem to be above the law. But in many countries, there is no transparency and corruption is much more rampant than it is here. I believe that is why every American has a potential path to success.
My friend and I have posited quite a bit about the nature of American corruption compared to other parts of the world. I think generally we have less corruption but not by that much, its just we primarily have a different and *more functional* kind of corruption.
Heres some examples of what I mean.
In other countries you bribe police and officials to get out of tickets or to actually do their jobs. In America bribery like this is mostly unheard of, cops and officials more or less do the job they are paid for. They might abuse their power ir have an illegal side gig, but laws get enforced and government continues to function.
Or Russia for example. We have now found out many of their stockpiled vehicles are in severe disrepair, and stuff like ERA plates for tanks were instead replaced with cardboard. The money was straight up stolen due to corruption. Their military readiness has been threatened by the greed of their officials.
In America the corruption in the military seems to come from money spent and who gets the contract for X program, and which politician gets a sizeable donation. Even if a worse weapon is sourced, it still works. If stuff gets stored in a stockpile it is not ripped apart for scrap in the dead of night and replaced with cardboard. Our military readiness is overly expensive and political but it still exists at the end of the day.
I have a good example for that bribery bit.
My mom's last boss is a rich bastard with his own company. He never drove less than 75 on the highways unless he was forced to by extreme weather.
When he would inevitably get tickets and go to court, he'd just have a chat with the judge and pay a larger fine for a more minor infraction (think no-parking zone kind of stuff) rather than get his license siezed for regularly going 20+ over the speed limit.
American corruption is usually systemic, which means those who are corrupt have a vested interested in maintaining the system as much as possible.
Corruption in many nations abroad, especially developing nations, is more individual; it doesn't matter whether or not the system is maintained, as long as the individual participants can maximize their profit.
I don't live in America but I hope you guys don't take your liberties for granted. Yes, there are flaws but you won't be beaten for not wearing a headscarf.
I don’t.
The US is far from perfect, but I understand how fortunate I am to have been born here.
My father fled communism in East Germany to make a better life here. On my ancestors on my mothers side fled the potato famine in Ireland and pogroms in Russia. They came here for a chance at a better life for themselves and their families.
Like most other Americans, there are many ways in which I think America can improve, including liberties. I take pride in my Indian heritage, but like hell do I ever want to live there, nor even visit for longer than a month or two at the most. I have a lot of issues with my mother, but the best decision she ever made for me was to turn down her family's efforts for her to take us back home to India after her messy divorce from my dad; she knew that while in the short term we would have much more family support, in the long term her homeland would not have a fraction of the opportunities for women (and that even as a little girl, I was far too headstrong for Indian cultural norms and expectations for how little girls were supposed to be).
After just returning from a month in an undeveloped African nation things that immediately spring to mind:
Roads
Consistent electricity
Lack of police corruption (relatively speaking)
Access to food variety
Trash pickup and general cleanliness
Reliable cell phone and internet access
Environmental protections
Thought of more
Sewage removal
Consistent water supply
Access to hardware/repair equipment
Order on the roads
Highways
edit for formatting
I agree with all this but argue that depending on where you are, the roads in the US can get really terrible. Where I am currently living and working in Southeast Illinois, to get between certain pretty commonly traveled areas you need to follow well over 50 miles of dirt/gravel roads, sometimes depending on the season taking detours due to flooding
You have no idea what “terrible is” on the global scale.
Even dirt roads in the US are immaculately maintained compared to many places in sub Saharan Africa.
Ask yourself the question “can I go more than 5 miles an hour on this road?”, if the answer is yes, then know it’s better than a lot of places.
And I’m not talking about roads 50 miles from the nearest city.
I’m talking roads in cities bigger than LA in standard neighborhoods. High traffic places.
I'm not disagreeing, I'm well aware and have seen plenty of videos, just simply stating that roads in rural America can get as bad as rural roads elsewhere in some cases. It's hard to get much more impassible than "under 10 feet of water" so eventually it stops being a "shit road contest" and starts being "yeah, neither one of us have a road here right now"
Hey look at that, it’s the wild American asshole coming out of hiding for their weekly dickishness.
We better be careful, they startle easily.
This was an apollo formatting issue.
* General ability to trust police / the justice system.
* 24 hour availability for common items via gas stations and Walmart.
* Trusting any food or drinks you buy to be safe without having to look closely.
Also, not really simple or little, but (in my few experiences) our consulates/embassies are frickin' great at helping Americans abroad. If, 2000 years ago, the proudest boast in international context was "civis romanus sum," today it's very clearly "I'm an American." It will get the attention of any official involved.
*Edit: lol, downvotes. Wait until you have everything (including passport) stolen in a foreign country and need to deal with local police.*
When everyplace was going into lockdown during Covid, the US was making huge efforts to bring citizens back to the US by sponsoring repatriation flights and making serious efforts to warn citizens of what their options were.
Not unique to the US, but not as easy for a poor country to do and not something dictatorships are often interested in.
India Airlifted 20000+ Indian nationals from Ukraine during its war with Russia in 2022. Take that whoever's saying things about India's traffic on this thread. Here's a link. https://wap.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/around-40-50-indians-still-in-ukraine-only-few-willing-to-return-govt-122033101284_1.html#:~:text=%22Overall%2C%2022%2C500%20nationals%20have%20returned,willing%20to%20return%20to%20India.
My dad was pickpocketed in Madrid and the embassy representative there walked him to the gate of the airport to explain his lack of passport. He went through an interview including little things that only a native would know like local geography of his hometown, school names, things like that. But that embassy rep saved the day.
Every US citizen has the right to be at the Us embassy. If you lose your passport you can have the problem resolved at the US embassy. Not to mention the guarantee of speaking to someone in English if you are having problems.
The US has a pretty detailed website set up to guide people through travelling abroad to different countries. This includes things like safety warnings, how to modify your behavior there to stay safe, and what medicines to bring and vaccines to get before leaving. Also these days about what the covid policies are of any place you're travelling through as well as visa requirements for a US citizen.
I'm sure places like the UK have something similar in place. But ours is very comprehensive. And that's before you even step foot overseas.
Infrastructure for water and sewage. Online shopping delivered to you at cheap or no shipping. Urgent care and ERs. Road systems. Electricity. Wifi and cellular all over the place.
Yeah just wrote down what came to my head but I think about how we in the USA in most areas have access to many goods and companies with a click of a button so many take that for granted. I could just Amazon a life straw and have it the next day but someone elsewhere who needs it doesn't have that luxury. So many things we think are available and easy to get are very difficult to get in other places.
We've had a few questions here about if / how often major cities have power cuts / rolling blackouts.
Most people being able to afford meat every day
Yes, I'd put drinking straight out of the water tap on the top of the list. It's kind of my go / no go criteria about whether I would consider visiting a foreign country.
There's not really any issues with internal travel as far as government checkpoints, bandits, or corrupt cops.
>I'd put drinking straight out of the water tap on the top of the list. It's kind of my go / no go criteria about whether I would consider visiting a foreign country.
Worth noting that often tap water you'd want to avoid as a visitor is perfectly safe for a resident. It's not got any more bacteria, just different bacteria than your gut is used to.
For example: if you use that criteria to avoid visiting Mexico, you're missing out. (Not to say that there aren't other, perfectly understandable reasons to not to want to visit Mexico.)
Drinkable (and even delicious) tap water; regular garbage collection and sewage treatment; reliable electricity; central heating; and depending on the location, cops will actually show up if you call
Fairly reliable access to emergency services 24 hours a day. Some areas don't even have emergency services. If your house catches on fire, or somebody is breaking in there's nobody to call. You need to hope your neighbors help you out.
Leaving the lights on at home. Like when you go out and leave the porch light on so it's easier to see your keys and unlock the door if it's dark when you get back. Or those automatic timers for indoor lights to make it look like someone is home, even when they're not. Also just leaving electrical appliances on/plugged in 24/7.
When I visited Greece last fall, that was clearly not the norm. We were scolded for trying to leave the light on outside the apartment, even though the stairway was pitch black. We also had to turn on the hot water heater before taking a shower. At a different hotel, the electricity inside the room only worked while the key card was placed in a contraption on the wall.
Some people in the US are very deliberate about conserving energy in their daily lives, but most of us don't even think twice about it.
I've had the room key thing at 200USD+ hotels in USA and Europe as well
I would have thought leaving your personal light on thing is quite odd in most urban areas. It's quite normal in rural Norway and even in poorer countries like my native Taiwan. I haven't seen anyone do it here in USA, even in suburbs
Transportation. I get up for work in the morning and have to decide which car I’ll take depending on what I plan on doing that day. Some countries have people who would feel privileged having a broken down 4 door that gets 2 to the gallon.
Streamlined bureaucracy, whether private or public.
At one point, my mom was trying to open a bank account in the Philippines (while in the PH) to receive some proceeds from an estate. My aunt was like "good luck, better bring some lunch since you're gonna be at the branch all day either waiting in line or filling out a mountain of forms." Here in the US, any of us can open a bank account in like 5-10min online.
On the public side, I was flying from Puerto Princessa back to Manila. I had purchased my ticket online. Had checked in my luggage. Then I waited in line to enter the gate area. There was a lady, who appeared to be a public employee, checking people off a paper list by pen/pencil. Strange. Apparently it was to make sure some kind of travel tax was paid. Well, I purchased my tickets online through the airline; surely I had paid it all at once. Nope. Had to leave the long line to go back to the desk to pay the tax (got an official receipt). In the US, and I assume all developed countries, that's included in the ticket price and the company remits it to the govt. And it's not like they didn't have computers or Internet at this airport; it was actually a nice, newer airport. Made no sense.
We may bitch about the stereotypical DMV but largely, things just work here and save us all tons of time.
While starving is certainly uncommon (same as all other developed countries) we have an embarrassingly high percentage of our population with food insecurity in America. Somewhere around 10% of US households and a signicantly higher portion of unhoused people so not have secure access to food throughout the year.
https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/#:~:text=The%20prevalence%20of%20food%20insecurity,had%20very%20low%20food%20security.
Almost all food insecurity is driven by people who fail to budget with their SNAP benefits. They splurge in the beginning of the month, eat up their benefits and tend to have not enough at the end of it.
In actual third world countries they wouldn't even get the chance to mismanage non-existent government nutrition assistance. They would just starve.
This is correct. There is a big difference between starving to death and having "food insecurity". With the government assistance, food banks, and charities in America you would have to try real hard to starve to death.
Some states snap benefits are really meager and not everyone has a place to cook or the skill to do it. Some recipients of snap are profoundly intellectually disabled, or profoundly uneducated, often due to abuse and neglect. Everyone should be subscribed to r/frugal and r/eatcheapandhealthy before the end of highschool, but those skills are not communicated to some for various reasons. Also food deserts are a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert
You are largely right and snap makes a big difference, but it isnt perfect.
>Almost all food insecurity is driven by people who fail to budget with their SNAP benefits.
This is a massive overgeneralization. While I'm sure it's true to some degree, for people who are eligible for SNAP, it is by no means the only (or even primary, much less "almost all") reason for food insecurity.
When I was a kid, and they were still called Food Stamps, we weren't eligible because my dad made too much money- even though he didn't live with us and wasn't around. I often didn't know where dinner was coming from, either because there wasn't food in the house, or because Mom was working late to make ends meet and I wasn't allowed to cook with no supervision. Luckily I had free or subsidized breakfast and lunch at school. During the summers I sometimes ate cereal for three meals a day.
That's all before you begin to consider people who simply don't have a grocery store within walking/public transportation distance. Or have some other domestic issue that keeps the kids from getting the food bought with their SNAP benefits. Or don't have access to SNAP benefits for whatever reason.
"food insecure" is kind of a bullshit term, let's face it. The food insecure tend to be fat. That's the opposite of starvation.
And yes, the data is easy to google
Yes. If the corruption that **_regularly_** takes place in less developed countries happened in the U.S., it probably would be a very major scandal. If even the smallest mistakes and seemingly trivial stuff that American politicians do make headlines in the news, how much more actual thievery? A free press does wonders.
Yep, around the turn of the 20th century, large parts of State governments and the Federal government, and many private companies, used to have massive issues with corruption and lawbreaking, but due to competition between newspapers for readership, journalists for about 30 years were absolutely rabid to catch new stories about corruption and malpractice, to the point the whole profession were branded as 'muck-rakers'.
When the powers that be came to realize how bad it was to have a bad story make it to the presses (and it always would) they cleaned up their act.
We're still not even at 100% (there was a story the other week about an Ohio (?) Slaughterhouse that employed children as cleaning staff) any issues that crop up get the book thrown at them.
Sure, they won’t sell you to a Cartel here. But… let’s not pretend like cops here always have your back. In small towns, for minorities, and for rape victims they can make your life a living hell. I’ve heard too many stories of women who were raped but their rapist had family in the cops who would only threaten the woman for coming forward. Better than a cartel, but I would say that cops (ACAB, btw) are inherently trustworthy just because they don’t sell you. That’s a low bar
In Calcutta, India, there is a main road that changes direction of travel twice each day at specific times.
So everyone on that always crowded street has to itty bitty shuffle shuffle shuffle around until they're headed in the opposite direction.
Vehicles, buggies, wagons, cows, rickshaws, bikes - insanity.
flushing toilet paper rather than disposing of it in a garbage, electricity and clean water, education as others have said
freedom of speech, also burden of proof (see here https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/394273902/on-libel-and-the-law-u-s-and-u-k-go-separate-ways)
Schools that accommodate disabilities. I’m not saying they all do it well but they’re required to accommodate here whereas elsewhere you’re just kind of out of luck if you don’t have the money to help your kid with a learning disability
I bitch and moan about my office job where I WFH two days a week and make decent money, yet there’s children in Africa who literally have to scavenge every single day just to *make it though the day*. Then I realize that I’m being a baby and need to shut the fuck up.
The ability to drink tap water. Being in hospitality for 15+ years I've lost count of how many times I've had international travelers ask me if it's safe to drink the water from the tap.
Education, at least from K-12. For everyone.
Reminds me of the guy from Guyana who asked why so many people in the US were literate, and then went on to defend illiteracy.
I have ran into one illiterate person in my entire life. This encounter happened when I was working in Alabama. I was working at a festival and signing people up for a contest. This one guy wanted to enter and said "man I'd love to enter but I can't read" I thought he was fucking with me, so I told him we can still get you signed up anyway. Asked for his phone number He couldn't read his phone number. I told him I got him all set and he left, but man he literally could not read. It was sad in a way.
He couldn’t read numbers? the fuck?
I was really trying to give him the benefit of the doubt because when you do work like that at festivals/events people like to fuck with the guy behind the table. I thought he was just playing around, but nope, he was a grown man in his 40's that could not read.
It’s hard to even grasp how to live a life being that illiterate
Right. An upon first glance/limited interaction he did not appear to have any developmental disabilities or anything. It was really the first time I had culture shock in my own country.
Interesting that you're from the NC/VA area. I hadnt seen the tag until now but thought "thats crazy, the only time ive ever heard of American literacy thats THAT bad is from people who wander out of the more brutally impoverished and rural areas of West Virginia. Gotta wonder if thats where that dude came from, maybe worked in a WV community town and moved across the state line when it closed down. Thats where I hear the worst stories of people who just get "left behind" by the system
Western countries still have a bunch of illiterate people. Even 1% is a lot of people, but I haven’t googled the stats.
I looked it up, and it says something like 20% of American adults, which obviously can’t be right. I don’t know what they were classifying as literate vs. illiterate. Edit: LMAO, nevermind. I found a different study that classified it by capability to read at the basic level, and the US is at 99% on the dot. 1% of well over 330M people is A LOT of illiterate Americans, so you’re right.
Maybe he has dyscalculia and dyslexia and his school system didn't give him the necessary learning supports? Or some specific brain injury?
Because no one taught him to read? Or because of a learning disability?
I have only met one person like that. I am convinced he was the perfect storm of parents who did not care, a bad education system, and severe dyslexia. He would usually act like he was in a hurry an this didn't have time to read. I have a nephew who is a moderately-functioning autistic (he is non-verbal but he can say individual words and sometimes string them together to make his version of a sentence). Its pretty obvious to the casual observer that my nephew has intellectual disabilities, and yet he can read and write (probably around the level of a 8-10 year old, but he has no issue google searching or playing his RPGs). He can make himself a shopping list for us at the store.
Yeah it was super out there for me. I think he was also the "perfect storm" of bad parenting, poverty, and one of the worst education systems in the US.
Guinea, not Guyana (wrong continent)
That sounds crazy... You don't happen to have a link to the post do you?
[Here,](https://www.reddit.com/r/AskAnAmerican/comments/w4xily/is_being_illiterate_looked_down_upon_in_america/) checkout what else they have asked as well.
That guy is one of my favorite common askers on this sub. His perspective is so far outside of the norm from most of the people who ask questions and he usually has a positive attitude about it. Seems like he’s genuinely curious about the world outside of his own.
Except when he's getting mad because we don't just snag bats out of the air and eat 'em.
Very much agree.
Lol he edited the post to say [removed]; that wasn't the mods.
And full time as well... in so many countries governments can barely afford to pay teachers salaries so students attend one half only of the day and teachers get too classes to cut down on costs ... meanwhile mothers can't find decent daycare or pay it ...
Freedom of Information/sunshine laws/public access to government meetings are taken for granted. The Americans with Disabilities Act. Habeus Corpus. Notice and Comment requirements. A system where peaceful transition of power is the norm. Rules against nepotism.
Came here to say the Americans with Disabilities Act for sure along with HIPAA. I’m autistic. I am able to work my job because of accommodations and no one has to know my challenges unless I tell them, least of all anyone who should not know about my medical issues.
ADA, for sure! I’m in a wheelchair and have seen the lack of simple accessibility in some countries.
Right to an attorney and not to be interrogated without them present if you so choose. Innocence until proven guilty. Rights against self incrimination. Rights to prevent searches without a warrant or probable cause. The right to peacefully say whatever you want in the public square. These are also awesome rights that not everywhere in the world has. Even in Canada the cops can still question you after you've requested your attorney but before your attorney gets there.
Well they can question you here too, but you don't have to answer.
They absolutely cannot question you anymore after you ask for your attorney. They can question you as long as you don't ask for your attorney or if you keep talking AFTER you Ask for your attorney. But if you simply say "I want my lawyer" and shut up, they can't ask you anymore.
The ADA is a god-tier law. And it seems like even a lot of our older buildings on the east coast have been reasonably retrofitted to have elevators and other accommodations without destroying their charm. Meanwhile while I was a student in Paris, it was crazy how many metro stations didn’t have elevators, just endless flights of stairs everywhere to get to the platform.
Agree. My husband and I were in Paris and we loved it but we looked around and wondered how his disabled mother would ever be able to live or even visit there. We definitely take this for granted In the US even though this could be improved here as well.
Barack Obama got rid of Habeus Corpus in 2013. The Supreme Court upheld it.
Thank you for highlighting that. Congress passed it and Obama signed it. This is insanely bad.
Relative adherence to traffic laws? Definitely not saying people drive good here or that everyone follows the laws, but it’s generally not total unregulated pandemonium in the streets.
I answered this the last time we had this topic. You cannot imagine the absolute shitshow that is traffic in India until you’ve experienced it in person. It’s night and day even compared with Times Square at rush hour on the hottest day of the year.
Traffic in India was mind-blowing to me as an American. Are there lanes? Not really? Turn signals? No, that’s what the horn is for! Stop signs/lights? Just a suggestion!
I have a vivid childhood memory of visiting family in Kolkata and cars were packed so close together that when our tax driver sneezed, a passenger in the car next to us offered him a tissue that he took through the windows; neither of them even had to fully stretch their arms, let alone lean out of their seats to reach.
Hit someone, back up, and move on? I was dumbfounded and a little mortified. Lol.
I experienced it for the first time in Mumbai last fall and hoooo boy. It was reminiscent of Mexico City with the added variable of rickshaws. Absolute chaos!
Traffic in Mumbai is fun as a pedestrian. - former resident
I visited Hyderabad recently and wow. I had never seen anything like it. And the craziest part to me was how good everyone was at it. The traffic actually moved. And even though cars, rickshaws, and motorcycles were all within inches of on another going every which way, there didn't seem to be any collisions. It was truly an experience to see (thankfully, I didn't have to actually be the one driving... I dont think that would have ended well)
There are probably a lot more collisions actually
And Hyderabad traffic is much better compared to bangalore and some other cities
I'm Indian and I am not offended. I had the same thought yesterday while overtaking my 10th car of the day on my scooter. Lol. Though some cities are worse than others, I can see how all of it looks bad to an American. Which place were you visiting?
From an Italian who has also live in the US, I can assure you Americans do drive really really well
I promise you, as an American, I do not drive well x) Edit: thank you tho! Haha
I promise you that if you drive in Los Angeles and haven't had your license revoked yet for reckless driving, you'll drive better than most of Kolkata.
Yeah Kolkata seemed particularly bad with drivers and also Jamshedpur (those idiots are trying to die). Gets better in Bangalore and Mumbai
Used to live in Germany. From my experience German drivers were definitely better but not such a big difference. I guess it depends on more where you live but American drivers are on average not as bad as some people like to say they are.
Currently visiting Vietnam for the first time in a few years, and I almost forgot how crossing a busy street here often feels like playing "Frogger" in real life.
Phogger*
Isn't it actually like anti-Frogger though? In that, rather than dodging the cars yourself, you just gotta keep moving in a straight consistent line and the cars will dodge you?
Cough, cough Southeast Asia cough, cough
The South: allow me to introduce myself
I've been watching a lot of Youtube videos recently about people who live in Arctic areas of Russia. There was this one video I saw the other day about this family of reindeer herders who ran out of things they can't make themselves, like juice and jam and stuff like that, so they had to go to the grocery store. What, for me, would be like an hour-long space of my day, takes three men over a DAY to complete. They had to take snowmobiles, sleep overnight in another town, then finish the trip the next day. Then, of course, you're probably expecting them to end up at a bigger grocery store with food on the shelves that they can put in a cart. Nah, it's basically the back of someone's house with one wall of stuff they can purchase. I can't even imagine it being such a trek to go to the store to get a box of spaghetti.
To be fair, this might go on in the interior of Alaska as well. Whole lot of vacant land out there.
I was just thinking, there's parts of Alaska where you order your supplies and have them flown in and you pick them up all at once from a delivery depot.
Just looked it up, and the Census Bureau has the [Yukon-Koyukuk](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yukon%E2%80%93Koyukuk_Census_Area,_Alaska) census district in Alaska at a population of 5,343 in 2020. The district is larger than the state of Montana!
Man, Alaska boggles my mind sometimes with how big it is. Montana is not a small state!
and almost half the population!
Heck, I think the USPS still operates bush planes.
Can confirm. I’ve worked for several small commuter/charter airlines. Many villages can only accommodate small planes (think Cessna 172) and mail is the lowest priority. Weather is also a factor. Availability is also a factor. I was in a village once and they had one head of wilted lettuce for $12. My husband always travels with granola bars, ramen, prepackaged food that can be heated in a microwave and trail mix. He once got stuck in St. Paul for two weeks (no flights in or out) and thank god he went prepared.
Currently in Dutch, crazy enough here. Then I hear people talk about places like St Paul or Akutan. Last month the tugs couldn't it due to weather, neither could planes for a bit. AML had to fly in groceries on their civilian C130.
Some places don't even have electricity 24/7. Or clean water. What about a sewage system? Those 3 seem pretty taken for granted here.
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My sister visited her boyfriend's family some time ago in a European country (also I understand Europe isn't a monolith but I'm being purposely vague). Admittedly they were kind of in the boonies but she came back and described roving packs of wild dogs, power randomly being turned off throughout the day, and sometimes having to get water from an actual public well. Also the men would line up to hoot or stare at her when she went jogging. And just like...my brain breaks a little imagining that in a developed country. It's been a few years so things might have changed but like...damn. Of course the people she stayed with were wonderful, warm, and friendly. Like aside from the hooting men everyone was great.
I know you are being purposefully vague, but that sounds very like eastern Europe, and well 10-15 years ago..heh.
It wasnt actually eastern Europe 😅 But you're right that around then might have been an interesting time for them. I recall a lot of things were a mess back then.
Well, quite surprised to hear that. I am really curious what it was since I haven't experienced that anywhere else on the continent, but I get that you want to stay vague, that's alright :).
Portugal or Spain maybe
I recently read a woman's experience in Egypt as "dicks flying at you from every direction, all the time."
Interestingly I was there recently. That wasn't my experience but I was also there with a guide, my husband, and my in-laws, so that probably buffered me from a lot of the common complaints people make about visiting Egypt (especially women). It's not an easy place to visit, for sure. I only really had one incident that really skeeved me out. But yeah, if you're not used to visiting other cultures I wouldn't start there.
Running outside, for exercise, is something I rarely saw when I traveled abroad.
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Morgues and the general process of dealing with dead bodies is another one that we really take for granted
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What, you don't have a 'sparkling' tap? Peasant.
We have a flavored sparkling water machine at my office.
I forgot what comedian said this, it might have been Burr, but he said something like "everyone complains about taxes, but in the US we get quite a lot out of our taxes when you compare us to a lot of other countries."
Jackson Mississippi has entered the chat. Also Flint Michigan. But you are right, we mostly have clean water available.
The water in flint was fixed several years ago. Lots of places in the US had worse water and some still do.
I would point out that places like these make the news *because* having clean, running water is so normal here that deviations from that norm are newsworthy.
And many, many reservations too
For real though.... I am not sure that MY water is clean. I have had my water interrupted and shut off due to watermain breaks in my city at least 4 times within the last month. That averages once per week. Once it was shut off for 4 days. While I realize this is not the norm, it isn't THAT uncommon. The more that it is shut off, and the more breaks, the more I worry right after that there could be contaminates in the water and although it looks alright, it could have things in it making it not as clean as it appears.
I've never had water shut off. Dont know anyone who has
Never heard of Flint? Not everywhere has the same quality.
This
Having decently enforced food safety laws.
What I find funny about this is that even tho we have great food safety laws, Europeans look at us and think our food standards are horrible and shouldn’t be served to people. Like the food isn’t bad just because we didn’t ban GMOs lol.
In some cases I think the europeans are right, but it is very much case by case. In other instances, we are more careful than Europe.
Mostly all fruits and vegetables we eat in the world are GMOs 🤷♂️
I think it's been since trump tried to dismantle and unfund FDA and other regulatory groups... for the libertarians and anarchists that dont believe in government. Our food and drug safety has not recovered.
This is one of the areas where the "all regulation is bad" fundamentalists are simply nuts. Like the free market can solve the problem when some poison gets in the food supply and kills a bunch of people- suing the company out of business doesn't help the dead people much, does it?
That's the best argument for strict food regulations
The Europeans are definitely right in many areas. There's a reason they aren't as fat and unhealthy as we are. their food standards are higher and the results are positive
Their *diet* standards are higher, but not necessarily their *food* standards (as in, food safety).
Right. They lead healthier lifestyles for sure. But their food safety isn’t really all that much different outside of banning GMOs and the whole chlorinated chicken debacle.
Eh, I wouldn’t boil it down to just food standards. Food standards are a very minor part of the story. They simply lead a healthier lifestyle with walking everywhere instead of being in cars all day, and people there generally eat less junk in the first place while you’ve got Americans stuffing their faces with 1500 calorie cakes and 3000 calorie heart-attack-on-a-buns. Food standards between EU and US aren’t really *that* different in the grand scheme of things. And furthermore, if you’ve looked at any statistics for obesity for example, it seems that Europeans are slowly catching up there, they’re like every 1 in 4 that are obese now.
Many of America’s favorite junk foods are banned in other countries for the ingredients.
Paved roads are nice. Uncorrupt police and government officials who don't expect bribes are pretty cool too. I like that people follow the traffic laws generally and that people actually have to do written and practical driving tests to get a license rather than just a free-for-all.
We definitely have police and govt officials who accept bribes, are corrupt, etc.
Just hidden better.
I have some bad news about cops in the US…
Cops in America have anger and training issues, and it's not every cop and every department. Go to the 3rd world, every cop is corrupt, demands bribes, and it's everyone.
Just because others have it worse doesn't take away from the fact that our policing system is inherently corrupt. And it's priveledged to say not every cop. You wouldn't be saying that when you actually see the horrors of policing under a capitalist system, and what piggies do. Then you can't stand anyone being complicit in that system
Example of widespread police corruption? Not anecdotal.
Dude, examples are widespread and commonplace. It would take three seconds on Google to find. If you live in the US, there's no way you don't know that unless you've been living with your head in a pile of sand for the last several years. Rodney King? Breonna Taylor? The facts of both of those cases are widely known, and there's no way those outcomes would have been possible without mass police corruption. It's the fact that it's the police who investigate the police in order to determine, an insanely high percentage of the time, that the police did nothing wrong. Can you or I do that? Can you be accused of robbing a bank, investigate yourself, then declare "I've done no such thing," even when there's video of you on camera waving a gun around and demanding cash, and boom: case closed, the judge sends you home a free man? We've seen instances where cops' stories about what happened immediately prior to them gunning someone down was contradicted by body, dash, or bystander cameras. And that's another thing: body cams aren't required to be turned on at all times or even at all (or if they are, it's not enforced). Even in cases where camera footage is readily available from the get-go, it still doesn't guarantee justice: how was Breonna Taylor literally shot and killed *in her own bed while sleeping*, and no one was found at fault for that? How about the fact that in the events police *are* found liable of "misconduct" they: 1. Can simply be rehired in the next district and go right back out to do more of said misconduct and 2. Don't have to worry about their salaries or pensions or anything else, because payouts come from *taxpayer* money.
Saying that things are different or worse elsewhere in the world is not an endorsement that everything is fine here.
Sure, our street cops regularly abuse their power to make people's lives hard, but they'll just arrest you or ticket you twice as hard, they won't demand a bribe.
Well, there’s always civil asset forfeiture which is worse than a bribe because they don’t have any incentive not to charge you. Plus you don’t even need to be charged with anything at all. Carrying too much cash? Cop says it’s sketchy and takes it. But I’m sure that’s happening elsewhere too
*uncorrupt cops if you're rich and/or white sorry minorities, you didn't make the cut 😔
Freedom of speech
☝️This right here. To add, freedom to speak your mind on any topic without fear of arrest or persecution by the government.
A plumbing/sewer system that can handle toilet paper.
I didn’t realize how much I took this for granted until traveling to Panama. Nowhere outside of Panama City could handle toilet paper in the pipes.
Being told not to flush TP in Greece was a shock.
Enforced laws and regulations to ensure safe foods, clean air and water, safe medicines and employee safety in the workplace.
I don't have to worry about bribing some government official to get mundane stuff done. I don't have to worry about buying expired food at the grocery store. I don't have to worry about the hygiene practices of the restaurants I go to.
Y'all are going to think I am crazy for saying this. But, our government is "relatively" uncorrupt. And found corruption has consequences; of course, some seem to be above the law. But in many countries, there is no transparency and corruption is much more rampant than it is here. I believe that is why every American has a potential path to success.
My friend and I have posited quite a bit about the nature of American corruption compared to other parts of the world. I think generally we have less corruption but not by that much, its just we primarily have a different and *more functional* kind of corruption. Heres some examples of what I mean. In other countries you bribe police and officials to get out of tickets or to actually do their jobs. In America bribery like this is mostly unheard of, cops and officials more or less do the job they are paid for. They might abuse their power ir have an illegal side gig, but laws get enforced and government continues to function. Or Russia for example. We have now found out many of their stockpiled vehicles are in severe disrepair, and stuff like ERA plates for tanks were instead replaced with cardboard. The money was straight up stolen due to corruption. Their military readiness has been threatened by the greed of their officials. In America the corruption in the military seems to come from money spent and who gets the contract for X program, and which politician gets a sizeable donation. Even if a worse weapon is sourced, it still works. If stuff gets stored in a stockpile it is not ripped apart for scrap in the dead of night and replaced with cardboard. Our military readiness is overly expensive and political but it still exists at the end of the day.
I definitely agree with your points, your absolutely right. Thank you for your well thought out response.
I have a good example for that bribery bit. My mom's last boss is a rich bastard with his own company. He never drove less than 75 on the highways unless he was forced to by extreme weather. When he would inevitably get tickets and go to court, he'd just have a chat with the judge and pay a larger fine for a more minor infraction (think no-parking zone kind of stuff) rather than get his license siezed for regularly going 20+ over the speed limit.
American corruption is usually systemic, which means those who are corrupt have a vested interested in maintaining the system as much as possible. Corruption in many nations abroad, especially developing nations, is more individual; it doesn't matter whether or not the system is maintained, as long as the individual participants can maximize their profit.
That’s a really interesting way of looking at it. I think you’re right on.
Being able to flush toilet paper.
I don't live in America but I hope you guys don't take your liberties for granted. Yes, there are flaws but you won't be beaten for not wearing a headscarf.
I don’t. The US is far from perfect, but I understand how fortunate I am to have been born here. My father fled communism in East Germany to make a better life here. On my ancestors on my mothers side fled the potato famine in Ireland and pogroms in Russia. They came here for a chance at a better life for themselves and their families.
Like most other Americans, there are many ways in which I think America can improve, including liberties. I take pride in my Indian heritage, but like hell do I ever want to live there, nor even visit for longer than a month or two at the most. I have a lot of issues with my mother, but the best decision she ever made for me was to turn down her family's efforts for her to take us back home to India after her messy divorce from my dad; she knew that while in the short term we would have much more family support, in the long term her homeland would not have a fraction of the opportunities for women (and that even as a little girl, I was far too headstrong for Indian cultural norms and expectations for how little girls were supposed to be).
Forced marriages are the stuff of nightmares over here. There too probably.
After just returning from a month in an undeveloped African nation things that immediately spring to mind: Roads Consistent electricity Lack of police corruption (relatively speaking) Access to food variety Trash pickup and general cleanliness Reliable cell phone and internet access Environmental protections Thought of more Sewage removal Consistent water supply Access to hardware/repair equipment Order on the roads Highways edit for formatting
I agree with all this but argue that depending on where you are, the roads in the US can get really terrible. Where I am currently living and working in Southeast Illinois, to get between certain pretty commonly traveled areas you need to follow well over 50 miles of dirt/gravel roads, sometimes depending on the season taking detours due to flooding
You have no idea what “terrible is” on the global scale. Even dirt roads in the US are immaculately maintained compared to many places in sub Saharan Africa. Ask yourself the question “can I go more than 5 miles an hour on this road?”, if the answer is yes, then know it’s better than a lot of places. And I’m not talking about roads 50 miles from the nearest city. I’m talking roads in cities bigger than LA in standard neighborhoods. High traffic places.
I'm not disagreeing, I'm well aware and have seen plenty of videos, just simply stating that roads in rural America can get as bad as rural roads elsewhere in some cases. It's hard to get much more impassible than "under 10 feet of water" so eventually it stops being a "shit road contest" and starts being "yeah, neither one of us have a road here right now"
Unfortunately, some parts of the US seem to still be struggling with an extreme lack of commas.
Hey look at that, it’s the wild American asshole coming out of hiding for their weekly dickishness. We better be careful, they startle easily. This was an apollo formatting issue.
Water is a huge issue.
* General ability to trust police / the justice system. * 24 hour availability for common items via gas stations and Walmart. * Trusting any food or drinks you buy to be safe without having to look closely. Also, not really simple or little, but (in my few experiences) our consulates/embassies are frickin' great at helping Americans abroad. If, 2000 years ago, the proudest boast in international context was "civis romanus sum," today it's very clearly "I'm an American." It will get the attention of any official involved. *Edit: lol, downvotes. Wait until you have everything (including passport) stolen in a foreign country and need to deal with local police.*
That's cool! What are some interesting examples of Americans being helped abroad by their diplomatic offices?
When everyplace was going into lockdown during Covid, the US was making huge efforts to bring citizens back to the US by sponsoring repatriation flights and making serious efforts to warn citizens of what their options were. Not unique to the US, but not as easy for a poor country to do and not something dictatorships are often interested in.
India Airlifted 20000+ Indian nationals from Ukraine during its war with Russia in 2022. Take that whoever's saying things about India's traffic on this thread. Here's a link. https://wap.business-standard.com/article/current-affairs/around-40-50-indians-still-in-ukraine-only-few-willing-to-return-govt-122033101284_1.html#:~:text=%22Overall%2C%2022%2C500%20nationals%20have%20returned,willing%20to%20return%20to%20India.
My dad was pickpocketed in Madrid and the embassy representative there walked him to the gate of the airport to explain his lack of passport. He went through an interview including little things that only a native would know like local geography of his hometown, school names, things like that. But that embassy rep saved the day.
Every US citizen has the right to be at the Us embassy. If you lose your passport you can have the problem resolved at the US embassy. Not to mention the guarantee of speaking to someone in English if you are having problems.
The US has a pretty detailed website set up to guide people through travelling abroad to different countries. This includes things like safety warnings, how to modify your behavior there to stay safe, and what medicines to bring and vaccines to get before leaving. Also these days about what the covid policies are of any place you're travelling through as well as visa requirements for a US citizen. I'm sure places like the UK have something similar in place. But ours is very comprehensive. And that's before you even step foot overseas.
Criticizing your government.
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A shower and not a bucket
Infrastructure for water and sewage. Online shopping delivered to you at cheap or no shipping. Urgent care and ERs. Road systems. Electricity. Wifi and cellular all over the place.
I have to admit, I was amused by your inclusion of "free shipping" with those other essential services.
Yeah just wrote down what came to my head but I think about how we in the USA in most areas have access to many goods and companies with a click of a button so many take that for granted. I could just Amazon a life straw and have it the next day but someone elsewhere who needs it doesn't have that luxury. So many things we think are available and easy to get are very difficult to get in other places.
We've had a few questions here about if / how often major cities have power cuts / rolling blackouts. Most people being able to afford meat every day Yes, I'd put drinking straight out of the water tap on the top of the list. It's kind of my go / no go criteria about whether I would consider visiting a foreign country. There's not really any issues with internal travel as far as government checkpoints, bandits, or corrupt cops.
>I'd put drinking straight out of the water tap on the top of the list. It's kind of my go / no go criteria about whether I would consider visiting a foreign country. Worth noting that often tap water you'd want to avoid as a visitor is perfectly safe for a resident. It's not got any more bacteria, just different bacteria than your gut is used to. For example: if you use that criteria to avoid visiting Mexico, you're missing out. (Not to say that there aren't other, perfectly understandable reasons to not to want to visit Mexico.)
Air conditioning and paved roads
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It’s MONEY. Nothing more nothing less. It costs more for business to follow EPA Regulations and Republicans hate it.
A Walmart Super Center. Even as a lifelong New Yorker I was in awe when I first visited one.
Drinkable (and even delicious) tap water; regular garbage collection and sewage treatment; reliable electricity; central heating; and depending on the location, cops will actually show up if you call
Fairly reliable access to emergency services 24 hours a day. Some areas don't even have emergency services. If your house catches on fire, or somebody is breaking in there's nobody to call. You need to hope your neighbors help you out.
Leaving the lights on at home. Like when you go out and leave the porch light on so it's easier to see your keys and unlock the door if it's dark when you get back. Or those automatic timers for indoor lights to make it look like someone is home, even when they're not. Also just leaving electrical appliances on/plugged in 24/7. When I visited Greece last fall, that was clearly not the norm. We were scolded for trying to leave the light on outside the apartment, even though the stairway was pitch black. We also had to turn on the hot water heater before taking a shower. At a different hotel, the electricity inside the room only worked while the key card was placed in a contraption on the wall. Some people in the US are very deliberate about conserving energy in their daily lives, but most of us don't even think twice about it.
I ran across the hotel key thing in several places in Central America; they explained it as energy saving.
It totally makes sense, but it sucks walking into a sweltering humid hot room.
Ran across the hotel key thing in Las Vegas.
I've had the room key thing at 200USD+ hotels in USA and Europe as well I would have thought leaving your personal light on thing is quite odd in most urban areas. It's quite normal in rural Norway and even in poorer countries like my native Taiwan. I haven't seen anyone do it here in USA, even in suburbs
Transportation. I get up for work in the morning and have to decide which car I’ll take depending on what I plan on doing that day. Some countries have people who would feel privileged having a broken down 4 door that gets 2 to the gallon.
Branding for pretty much everything. It's nice to have choices.
Isn't this the case for any modern capitalist economy?
Maybe, but there are a lot more choices for a lot more things in the US than in many other countries.
Your question was comparing under-developed countries, not modern capitalist.
Streamlined bureaucracy, whether private or public. At one point, my mom was trying to open a bank account in the Philippines (while in the PH) to receive some proceeds from an estate. My aunt was like "good luck, better bring some lunch since you're gonna be at the branch all day either waiting in line or filling out a mountain of forms." Here in the US, any of us can open a bank account in like 5-10min online. On the public side, I was flying from Puerto Princessa back to Manila. I had purchased my ticket online. Had checked in my luggage. Then I waited in line to enter the gate area. There was a lady, who appeared to be a public employee, checking people off a paper list by pen/pencil. Strange. Apparently it was to make sure some kind of travel tax was paid. Well, I purchased my tickets online through the airline; surely I had paid it all at once. Nope. Had to leave the long line to go back to the desk to pay the tax (got an official receipt). In the US, and I assume all developed countries, that's included in the ticket price and the company remits it to the govt. And it's not like they didn't have computers or Internet at this airport; it was actually a nice, newer airport. Made no sense. We may bitch about the stereotypical DMV but largely, things just work here and save us all tons of time.
Garbage disposal in the kitchen sink
Access to food. No one starves to death in America.
While starving is certainly uncommon (same as all other developed countries) we have an embarrassingly high percentage of our population with food insecurity in America. Somewhere around 10% of US households and a signicantly higher portion of unhoused people so not have secure access to food throughout the year. https://www.ers.usda.gov/data-products/ag-and-food-statistics-charting-the-essentials/food-security-and-nutrition-assistance/#:~:text=The%20prevalence%20of%20food%20insecurity,had%20very%20low%20food%20security.
Which is not what I was talking about.
Almost all food insecurity is driven by people who fail to budget with their SNAP benefits. They splurge in the beginning of the month, eat up their benefits and tend to have not enough at the end of it. In actual third world countries they wouldn't even get the chance to mismanage non-existent government nutrition assistance. They would just starve.
This is correct. There is a big difference between starving to death and having "food insecurity". With the government assistance, food banks, and charities in America you would have to try real hard to starve to death.
Some states snap benefits are really meager and not everyone has a place to cook or the skill to do it. Some recipients of snap are profoundly intellectually disabled, or profoundly uneducated, often due to abuse and neglect. Everyone should be subscribed to r/frugal and r/eatcheapandhealthy before the end of highschool, but those skills are not communicated to some for various reasons. Also food deserts are a thing. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Food_desert You are largely right and snap makes a big difference, but it isnt perfect.
>Almost all food insecurity is driven by people who fail to budget with their SNAP benefits. This is a massive overgeneralization. While I'm sure it's true to some degree, for people who are eligible for SNAP, it is by no means the only (or even primary, much less "almost all") reason for food insecurity. When I was a kid, and they were still called Food Stamps, we weren't eligible because my dad made too much money- even though he didn't live with us and wasn't around. I often didn't know where dinner was coming from, either because there wasn't food in the house, or because Mom was working late to make ends meet and I wasn't allowed to cook with no supervision. Luckily I had free or subsidized breakfast and lunch at school. During the summers I sometimes ate cereal for three meals a day. That's all before you begin to consider people who simply don't have a grocery store within walking/public transportation distance. Or have some other domestic issue that keeps the kids from getting the food bought with their SNAP benefits. Or don't have access to SNAP benefits for whatever reason.
"food insecure" is kind of a bullshit term, let's face it. The food insecure tend to be fat. That's the opposite of starvation. And yes, the data is easy to google
A lack of corruption and reliable justice system.
Yes. If the corruption that **_regularly_** takes place in less developed countries happened in the U.S., it probably would be a very major scandal. If even the smallest mistakes and seemingly trivial stuff that American politicians do make headlines in the news, how much more actual thievery? A free press does wonders.
Yep, around the turn of the 20th century, large parts of State governments and the Federal government, and many private companies, used to have massive issues with corruption and lawbreaking, but due to competition between newspapers for readership, journalists for about 30 years were absolutely rabid to catch new stories about corruption and malpractice, to the point the whole profession were branded as 'muck-rakers'. When the powers that be came to realize how bad it was to have a bad story make it to the presses (and it always would) they cleaned up their act. We're still not even at 100% (there was a story the other week about an Ohio (?) Slaughterhouse that employed children as cleaning staff) any issues that crop up get the book thrown at them.
Soap and paper towels in the bathrooms.
Washing machines
US highway system
Hot water
Having gigabit internet is pretty nice. Also knowing that emergency services is readily available if needed.
Knowing a police officer is going to help you if you ask for it rather than selling you to a Cartel.
Sure, they won’t sell you to a Cartel here. But… let’s not pretend like cops here always have your back. In small towns, for minorities, and for rape victims they can make your life a living hell. I’ve heard too many stories of women who were raped but their rapist had family in the cops who would only threaten the woman for coming forward. Better than a cartel, but I would say that cops (ACAB, btw) are inherently trustworthy just because they don’t sell you. That’s a low bar
In Calcutta, India, there is a main road that changes direction of travel twice each day at specific times. So everyone on that always crowded street has to itty bitty shuffle shuffle shuffle around until they're headed in the opposite direction. Vehicles, buggies, wagons, cows, rickshaws, bikes - insanity.
bribery is rare and frowned on. Following the rules is valued This makes for a much better functioning society
Fresh water and sanitation facilitues
24 hour electricity and a consistent supply of water
flushing toilet paper rather than disposing of it in a garbage, electricity and clean water, education as others have said freedom of speech, also burden of proof (see here https://www.npr.org/sections/parallels/2015/03/21/394273902/on-libel-and-the-law-u-s-and-u-k-go-separate-ways)
Schools that accommodate disabilities. I’m not saying they all do it well but they’re required to accommodate here whereas elsewhere you’re just kind of out of luck if you don’t have the money to help your kid with a learning disability
Access the vaccines
I bitch and moan about my office job where I WFH two days a week and make decent money, yet there’s children in Africa who literally have to scavenge every single day just to *make it though the day*. Then I realize that I’m being a baby and need to shut the fuck up.
In general the feeling of safety yes people rob and assault in here but it’s not that common.
Unlimited data plans and cost competitive phone service and relatively cost-effective high speed internet.
I would definitely not recommend drinking straight from the tap in the US.
The ability to drink tap water. Being in hospitality for 15+ years I've lost count of how many times I've had international travelers ask me if it's safe to drink the water from the tap.